al-Mursalāt 77:41-42

Inna'l-muttaqīna fī ẓilālin wa ʿuyūn · Wa fawākiha mimmā yashtahūn

"The godwary are in shades and springs · and fruits of the kind they desire."

The sūra's only counter-tableau. For forty verses a single side has been told of; here a four-verse other side enters.

The sentence begins with إِنَّ and there is no conjunction. The preceding verse had ended with wayl; this verse begins straight off with inna'l-muttaqīn.

In Arabic this transition is called isti'nāf: a new sentence without a conjunction. And the dropping of the conjunction between two sentences (faṣl), as recorded in the section on al-Ṭāriq, shows that the second sentence is in a tight relation with the first.

Here the relation is contrast. And the absence of the conjunction does not soften the contrast but sharpens it: the two tableaux are set side by side with no transitional word between them.

Root: و-ق-ي. Waqā — he protected, he was a shield. ٱتَّقَىٰ (the iftiʿāl form) — he protected himself, he guarded himself. مُتَّقِى — one who guards himself.

• وِقَايَة — protection, a shield.
• تَقْوَىٰ — the state of being guarded.
• أَتْقَىٰ — the most guarded.

The concrete sense of the root is a shield: the thing placed between a person and harm.

And here there is an observation which I record as my own reading: the first thing counted as the godwary's reward is shade.

What is shade? What comes between the sun and a person — that is, a shield.

A muttaqī is one who guards himself. And the place he is put in is a place that guards. The root of the word and the character of the reward do the same work: a shield.

I record this not as a claim of shared root — و-ق-ي and ظ-ل-ل are separate roots — but as a conceptual correspondence, and I state that it is my own reading.

Here is the sūra's plainest internal contrast.

There is a contrast in all six rows. And the most striking is the last: beside the false shade there is fire, beside the real shade water.

The singular/plural difference is meaningful too. In the thirtieth verse there was a single shade and it had been divided into three — that is, what was one had been broken up. In the forty-first verse the shades are plural and undivided.

I record this as my own reading; the wordings of the two verses are plain in the text.

And the difference of mood is perhaps the most important. In the thirtieth verse the addressee was told "go" — he was asked to move. In the forty-first there is no command at all; the godwary are already there: fī ẓilāl.

One is on the way, the other has arrived.

Root: ع-ي-ن. ʿAyn — both eye and spring. The same word.

This root was treated in the section on al-Ghāshiya (ʿaynin āniya / ʿaynun jāriya) and there the contrast of two springs was framed: one boiling, one flowing.

That the eye and the spring are named with the same word is one of Arabic's striking preferences. Both are an opening from which a liquid comes out of a surface. And the Qurʾān sometimes uses this shared name.

The meaning of a spring in the desert. Like shade, a spring in Arabia is not an aesthetic element but a condition of life. A ʿayn is the centre of an oasis; settlement is built around it.

In its description of the Garden the sūra places two things side by side: shade and water. That is, the two basic needs of the daytime.

And the link with verse 27. In the third proof section of the sūra it was said: "We gave you sweet water to drink" — māʾan furātā.

Here there are springs. The water in this world was a proof; the water there is a reward.

I record this as a link of wording: the sūra gives also the counterpart of what it counted as a proof.

Root: ف-ك-ه. And the root has two branches:

• فَاكِهَة — fruit. Its plural is fawākih.
• فُكَاهَة — pleasant conversation, jesting, cheerfulness. تَفَكُّه — to pass the time pleasantly, to take one's enjoyment.

The link between the two branches is framed by the lexicographers thus: fākiha is not necessary food (qūt, ṭaʿām) but what is eaten for pleasure. That is, the definition of fruit is not need but delight.

This distinction is at work in the Qurʾān: fākiha and ṭaʿām are not the same thing. What fills the belly is ṭaʿām; fākiha is what comes on top of it.

And the verse confirms this: مِمَّا يَشْتَهُونَ — "of the kind they desire".

ٱشْتَهَىٰ — root: ش-ه-و. Shahwa — a strong wanting felt for something. The usual English rendering, "lust", has narrowed in the same way; in Arabic the word is used for any strong desire whatever.

What the verse says is this: the fruit given is not a determined fruit; it is the desired fruit. The measure comes not from outside but from the one who desires.

This sets up a contrast with another measure in the sūra. In the tableau of Hell there was no food; in al-Ghāshiya there was ḍarīʿ — something unwanted, uneaten. Here, by contrast, the choice is left to the one who wants.

And a note: the verb ishtahā is of the iftiʿāl form, and this form often conveys effort, the person's own participation. That is, the desire is not a passive longing but an inclination proceeding from the person himself.